I know I say this about a lot of activities, but swinging in a blanket is one of my favorites for a neurodivergent child that is working on communication, particularly initiating (opening circles).
Here are just a few reasons why I love this activity:
Today I’m going to talk mostly about working with kids who are working on increasing the number of consecutive circles they have during each interaction.
As a disclaimer, remember that every child is different, and some kids don’t like the movement of being in a blanket swing. If this is the case, read the child’s cues and find a different activity.
Typically, I teach the importance of following the child’s lead, but there are occasions when the child is not going to come up with an idea like swinging in a blanket unless they’ve done it before. So, obviously you may need to introduce this activity to the child. However, once you introduce it, and the child begins to initiate doing more, it then turns into their idea. If they reject your idea, then try again another time.
Start by creating a routine and having fun, and once the child is engaged, you can start changing things up. Your routine could be as simple as this:
Do this several times until you know the child wants more. Then start having long pauses. Wait expectantly for the child to initiate (open a circle) that he wants more. Remember, gestures are communication. We’re going for engagement and circles. I wouldn’t recommend saying things like “say more, say more.” You can model it and give him action words, but don’t force him to say it.
So, if the child just looks at you and smiles, you can take that as communication and say “swing!” and then start swinging.
When the child is completely engaged and wants more and more, take advantage of this time and create opportunities for the child to communicate those wants.
Change things up a little, get creative. You could fall asleep so the child has to initiate things like
Know what the child’s limits are, you don’t want to make it so hard he gives up, but you also don’t want to do too much that you’re not giving those opportunities of communication.
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This activity is great for kids at an FDL of: 1-6
The Functional Developmental Levels (FDL) are based on The PLAY Project and DIR/Floortime
This activity is great for kids primarily participating in stages: 1-6
The Stages of Play come from Parten’s Stages of Social Play.
This activity includes: vestibular and proprioception
Our senses include more than the usual 5 senses. Some kids may seek certain types of sensory input and/or avoid other types.
This activity is good for targeting the following developmental skills: communication, cognitive, executive functioning, motor, social
These are the main areas of child development addressed in the Early Intervention Tutorials
In this section, I will give you specific examples of what you can do in this activity to address specific areas of development.
